IndyCar brings a wave of new regulations for 2025

The 2025 IndyCar season is on the horizon with the first race set to take place on March 2 - Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. The IndyCar test at the Sebring International Raceway is underway and will be a two-day test - 17-18 February. Amid this, IndyCar has come out with a host of new regulations and rules for the upcoming IndyCar season.

The new regulations include an altered allocation for the Firestone tires, a new spec fuel meter, drivers getting yellow flag warning in the cockpit, new rules for a crash exceeding 65 G’s, change in race distance, and changes to hybrid system restarts and oval restarts.

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Let's look at these changes in detail and analyze what they would mean for the team and the drivers as they take on the 2025 IndyCar season.

Alterations in the allocation of tire sets

IndyCar's tire provider Firestone will be providing an extra set of softer alternate tires for all the street and road courses, except for the Thermal and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course race. Since the Thermal is a high-wear track and the Indy road track is only a two-day race weekend, therefore the tire compound allocation for those two events remains the same.

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For the other road and street courses, a driver will now be getting five alternate (soft compound) and five primary (hard compound) tires. IndyCar has also asked Firestone to increase the performance gap between the two tire compounds.

New spec fuel meter

IndyCar will mandate the use of the new fuel meters made by Sentronics which will use Flowsonic sensors for fuel flow meters. Previously, IndyCar used to measure the volumetric flow rates via the fuel injectors, which was rarely 100% accurate.

With the inclusion of Flowsonic sensors, IndyCar will no longer need the calibration with the fuel injectors, as both Honda and Chevrolet engines will use the mandated fuel meter.

Cockpit changes

Drivers will now get the yellow flag warnings inside their cockpit on the steering wheels. Previously, the in-cabin warnings were sent via the race control and now the locally activated yellow flag will trigger the in-cockpit system.

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Another change made is that IndyCar will start confiscating the custom-molded driver’s seats and seat belts in case a crash exceeds 65 G’s for further inspections.

Change in IndyCar race distance

IndyCar has made alterations to the race distance of a few races. +5 laps at Long Beach making it 90 laps, +10 laps at Mid-Ohio making it 90 laps, +25 laps at Iowa doubleheader making it 275 laps, +5 laps at Toronto making it 90 laps and +19 laps at Nashville making it 225 laps.

Hybrid system starts

IndyCars was previously started manually using an external starter motor. However, the series introduced hybrid systems last year, and from this year onwards, the system in combination with an inbuilt starter motor to start the car. This will further help reduce the caution and yellow flag time, as the cars can be started from the cockpit using the hybrid system.

Oval restarts

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IndyCar will introduce a pair-up location on the lap before the restart to bunch up the cars and avoid disjointed starts. The beginning of the restart zone will also be extended in a bid to give drivers a choice of when they’d like to accelerate.

Other changes

Drivers will now be mandated to use the high line at the short ovals during the practice sessions to lay down the rubber on the high line, improving the racing and qualifying during the race.

IndyCar had also planned on introducing the Aluminium wheel for the 2026 IndyCar season, but the plan has now been pushed to at least the 2027 season.